


But Sentimental Boy Is My Nom De Plume

by Garlicbreadbowl



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, But only a little, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Humor, I found her clothes in a suitcase on ship wreck miles off the coast, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love Confessions, Love at First Sight, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mutual Pining, My SS is. A disaster, My dude is christian but also believes in Ye Olde Greek Pantheon, Pacifist Ending- aka i dont like war so no faction dies in my canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Requited Love, Romance, Swimming to cope, Y'know the secretary in DC?, based off of the time I sent danse home and swam naked around Spectacle, because i could, but im lov him, i made myself cry writing this, it was weird, yes. my canon. todd cant take it from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:35:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24483646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garlicbreadbowl/pseuds/Garlicbreadbowl
Summary: All the times Jesse had to swim to escape his feelings for a boy, and the one time he swam with said boy.OR: Garlic beats the emotional sh*t out of her characters.Playlist for my Sole is called 'Auribus tenere lupum' on Spotify and I've spent literal months on it. The songs appear in chronological order of relevancy. That's how heada** I am.
Relationships: Paladin Danse/Male Sole Survivor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	But Sentimental Boy Is My Nom De Plume

**Author's Note:**

> If you're someone waiting for me to update 'Human Interaction', i SWEAR i haven't abandoned it, I just wanted to write flowery purple prose and that isn't something I can really do when writing X. Just getting it out of my system. 
> 
> Title of this is from Trade Mistakes by P!ATD.

The first time he goes out into the murky water, it’s a week following their first meeting.

Jogging across the mine-field streets, chasing the echo of battle, the hordes of ferals fell to another gun on the scene. 

Jesse hadn’t looked at any of the people - kept his eyes on the advancing zombies, only nodded briefly to the Power Boy to assert himself as an ally. When the shrieking and cracks of rounds fell, the sky no longer littered with spraying blood and smoke, his eyes caught on the other man not encased in metal. Bleeding, fretted upon by a woman in red.

Of course he spared some stimpaks, offered some bandages and painkillers. What sort of advocate for reckless charity would he be, if he were to deny a bruised man medical supplies, of which he had plenty?

It was a gift that caught the Power Boy’s attention, apparently. He shook off the gore from his armor, called for what he perceived to be a civilian, asked for identification and business. Jesse turned back, and his foolish heart, soft as cotton and just as prone to burning, writhed under the man’s gaze.

Oh, how the Lord must have spent centuries on those eyes. Ever since the funeral pyre of his youth, when the village tried to send him to hell on a boat of ash, fire had been the only thing to truly scare him. But, oh dear, those  _ eyes _ . They burned with the blazing determination of Achilles, tearing through Trojans, a fury born of passion. The man’s eyes were molten, glowing, sharp and terrifying and ever so breath-taking. Jesse had frozen under their watch, afraid of the embers after such a thing had marred his skin.

For a man known for his speech, a tongue of silver and heart of gold, a gilded soldier, Jesse had fumbled on his words. 

They talked, and the man, Danse, sounded like a lighthouse. His voice was warm and clear, you felt safe under his words, but it was also rough and powerful, like waves crashing against the rocks daring to sink the ships. The warning of danger, and the protection from it. 

Jesse would have agreed to help the trio regardless, but he was more than happy to do it if it meant hearing that voice, seeing those eyes, as much as he could. 

And so, they went through Arcjet, and he agreed to join an army that he knew nothing about, just to see Danse’s eyes light up, see the fire burn a little brighter. 

Preston was less than agreeable about it. Everyone else, almost considering he’d lost his mind.

Maybe he had. Lost his logic, his sense, to those enigmatic pyres that still scorched his skin.

That is how he ends up at the docks of the Castle, shedding his clothes and jumping off the wall into the water.

  
The shock of cold does wonders against the heat boiling in his body, and the caress of the current that he fights keeps his mind away from a man who he’d just met. 

He swims out into the unknown waters, until a mass of land peers at him from the horizon. 

It takes another half-hour, but when he drags himself, sopping wet, onto the sandy beach, the melody of the ocean drowns out the endless gunfire from the city across the bay. 

The island is abandoned, its settlers killed by mirelurks, which means its only visitor is a man with a brilliant mind completely lost in his love-starved heart.

He was smart, but he was more foolish than a genius. A fickle, needy, deprived heart such as his hadn’t fallen before, though. It had beaten faster at the prospect of attention, but it had never frozen, never slowed at the sight of someone. Like he hadn’t fallen for the soldier, but...pulled towards him. It wasn’t the fast leap, not the shot of voda he’d regret in the morning in a stranger’s bed that he ended up in only because they honeyed their words just right. 

No, it wasn’t like that at all.

Lord, spare quarter for a silly man, aching for something real, so desperate for another’s affections. 

The house could be easily repaired, but he lacks the motivation to renovate it, furnish it like Sanctuary. So, he spends a weekend restoring the building and throws a sleeping bag in a room upstairs. 

Spectacle Island is quiet, which is good for thinking, but not silent, which is good to keep him grounded. It’s somewhere to run to when his shoulders need a break from the burdens.

~   
  


The second time he goes swimming, he slips into the water from the dock below the house on the island. He’d taken a boat to get here, this time, but the sea had never failed him in its comfort. When your head is in the stars, the chilly bay in the morning will bring you down. 

  
If only it could put out the inferno swirling in his chest.

He breaches the surface, glances up at the ship looming over the airport. 

They’d taken Fort Strong two weeks ago. That ‘they’ being Jesse and Danse.

Lurking in the hallways, waiting to get the jump on Mutants, with Danse at his back, presence unignorable, had been almost too much for the General to handle. 

Goodness, how Danse’s eyes flew up when told of his place in the Minutemen. He asked why a general of one army would become a soldier in another. Jesse told him of his missing child, said he needed eyes and allies in every place he could find them.

He didn’t tell him it was because he couldn’t bear not seeing him again.

The Mutants were defeated, shells taken, fort cleared. 

Just the other day, Danse pulled him aside, apologized to him for ‘being so hard on him’. It was a quiet, uncomfortably personal conversation.

For a man so sublime, he didn’t think very highly of himself. 

  
Jesse thinks the moon of him. How could he not? Danse was all dark hair and eyes like hot chocolate, voice like storm, a being of danger and safety and comfort and fear all at once. The moon was the same - intimidating, but a stoic guardian in the blackest night.

The man had yet to get along with the others - some, Jess doubted he’d ever be more than civil with. It should have mattered, but... he found it didn’t. 

He breaks his gaze away from the blimp that felt like a guillotine’s blade, hovering overhead, and swims south, less than a mile out from Spectacle Island’s beach. A few miles from the southern end of the island, there’s three different landmasses, floating homes and debris. A curious soul, he braves the current.

It’s a make-shift home, built on and held up by buoys. The residents are missing. He pulls himself up onto the platform, hardly shy of his almost-nudity in the absence of others. 

The raft has some crops growing, grain and mutfruit, and some papers litter a table. There are three sleeping bags, no skeletons, and no boat. A radio tuned to DC whispers news about the Prydwen, and Jesse is reminded of the troubles that await him at shore. 

From the edge of the raft, he can see two other structures to the south of the island, bouncing idly with the rolling waves. 

Another day, when his heart needed to be pulled away from the world. Another time, when his head needed the ghost of a husky voice exorcised. 

  
~

When he goes out to sea a third time, it’s after their discussion about Cutler.

He mentally kicks himself, cursing his heart for feeling faster than his mind thinks. Danse had confessed his friendship, and Jesse had so foolishly confessed something more. Told the man, voice shaking like the tulips of Amsterdam barraged by the wind, that he cared far too deeply to leave him, in whatever way the world may try to take him. 

Stupid, foolish boy he was. 

But, the way Danse caught on his words, overcome with sheepishness and all flustered, was the best outcome he hadn’t predicted. 

Of course, his heart wrenched, shattered like ice in his ribcage, at the realization that no one had told that sentiment to the soldier. No one had told him they cared. Jess couldn’t decipher the shards as broken in empathy for another, aching at the pain they both shared, or anger, furious at the world for not giving this exalted man the adoration he was so worthy of. 

Jess hikes to the southern end of Spectacle Island, sights set on a raft-home made from a ship and cargo trailers. 

The beach is soft against his feet, and the nostalgia for the shores of the Netherlands wraps around him like a vice. Sweet blue waters, sand like coffee creamer, the smell of the ocean waltzing with the winds like lovers embraced since He grew the Garden. 

Waves tear through the surface, bathing the sky in seaspray, but he has always been a strong swimmer and the current does not faze him.    
  


The home is a boat connected to a barge trailer, filled open-coffins floating around it. All the skeletons suggest that these people died when the bombs fell. There are some storage containers, holding nothing but scrap and oddities. Nothing of note. 

He climbs up to the crow’s nest, leans against the radio terminals and stares out to the ocean. The waves rage still, storm clouds loom overhead. A gloomy night, silence perturbed by the world roaring. 

He climbs back down to the boat, litter and debris blanketing the floor. The crack of lightning breaks the sky, ocean screaming back, answering the blast with just as much revere.

Rain bullets down the earth, the noise deafening against the steel of the ship. He’s in his boxers, standing at the edge of the barge trailer, still, watching the world threaten to break around him. Earth destructs, sky and ocean clawing at each other. Maybe out of love? What is hate, but passion, cut from the same cloth as love? A feeling so great for someone or thing, that it wreaks havoc throughout your body, sets you ablaze in its magnitude, hands aching to be on another’s body to enact pain or pleasure. 

The rain walls off the world outside, across the bay, and in this silent chaos, his heart can’t seem to cool.

~

  
He goes out to sea, braving currents because he’s a coward to his own feelings, a fourth time, one day after Danse sought him out for advice, comfort. 

  
The man came to him, admitting softly a moment of bitter vulnerability between him and that woman in red, Haylen. He said that, after mercy-killing another soldier so he wouldn’t die slowly and in agony, she came to him, and fell into his arms, bawling. Danse, blessed soul, kind, broken man, held her, let her cry against his shoulder.

Jess told him he was a pure-hearted man, one of compassion and safety, said he believed in him and that he shouldn’t be so unforgiving with himself.

And because he’s a senseless, puerile, half-witted  _ fool _ ,  _ truly  _ the Commonwealth’s  _ biggest idiot  _ since the  _ Mayor _ , in a moment of teasing-but-not-really camaraderie, asked Danse if he would ever hold  _ him _ .

Danse doesn’t know it, but the closest Jesse has ever been to death was when the soldier said he would. The General swears his heart went into arrhythmia, palpitations, erratic beats that felt like his arteries were behaving similarly to popcorn.

Aside from high-school crushes, the dread of the institute is bearing down on him. The teleporter is almost ready, and he’s to enter the threshold that keeps his baby. 

Shaun. Dear little boy, papa’s on his way. Lord, Jesus, Mary, grant the child safety, open the doors that hide him away from his father. Let him find his baby, if he has deserved nothing else, no clemency, at the very least, let this task not go awry, keep the path clear to Shaun. 

Jesse clenches his fists, heart twisting. 

He’d named the boy after a friend in the army. Man’s name was Shaun Redwood, from California. They’d been pinned by Chinese, and it was unlikely that they both made it out. Shaun proposed a deal - the survivor had to name his first born after the lost.

He was a brave man, a writer from Fresno that joined to find inspiration. Redwood was also pyrotechnically-inclined, a mad arsonist with a penchant for explosives when explosives had been explicitly forbidden for the mission. 

Nora had hated the name, but they weren’t  _ really  _ married anyway.

Jess scowled at the woman’s name.

After the... _ incident _ ...at Sanjiazi, the government deemed him unfit to live alone. Of course, he knew that Nora was not a personal therapist or caretaker, but a bug. A way to keep him silent, from reaching out, or doing anything to compromise the investigation into the massacre. 

He was not a man of hate, but Nora Ross was a vile woman. 

At the northside of Spectacle Island, he swims towards a concrete structure, likely a radio tower for the coast guard. 

Nora had become infatuated with him, in their forced marriage to keep up appearances. She was a housewife, he was a soldier home from war. It might have worked if she hadn’t grown attached. 

Shaun would  _ never  _ be something he regretted, but he  _ did  _ regret drinking off memories that night of the boy’s conception. Nora would not have to accept his refusal if he was incoherent and already hungry for bare-minimum affection. 

She’d been overjoyed when he fretted over her while she carried their child - for the first time, the subject of her obsession was paying her mind. It ended the moment Shaun was born, and suddenly she was all bitter.

He dives below, into the depths of the water. The ocean is stained with muck, filled with trash and unknown substances. It doesn’t matter - it helps with the fire dancing along his skin, caressing his heart. 

He may be a fool, but he isn’t unaware - the way he treated Nora was unacceptable. She wanted him, he ignored her, she took advantage of him while he was drunk, he basically used her as an incubator, then threw her aside once he had what he wanted. 

Maybe he  _ was  _ the victim, but he didn’t feel as if he was innocent. Though, it wasn’t unlike the other relationships he had. Someone didn’t love him, only wanted him as a prize, he accepted their advances to pretend he was happy and wring them dry of whatever fake, honeyed affection they would give him. 

The structure is this small radio tower with a raft-house built alongside it. There are mutfruit planters, a sleeping bag, trash suggesting the occupant lived here for a while. He knows they died, because the rowboat is still tethered. 

For all the things he let someone tell him at the cost of his own integrity, he never let someone tell him they loved him. They never did, he’d never had a relationship where they truly loved each other, so he had never said it and would never let them say it. 

It’s something he’s been dealing with, helped by Dr. Cabot. A trained therapist is handy when you have a graveyard of skeletons and no time to bury them. 

He’s told Cabot of his feelings towards Danse, after regaling the horror story that is his childhood and life. Cabot said he should take his own advice, not be so unforgiving of himself. 

Jess cracks his knuckles, diving back into the ocean for some laps around the Island. 

~

Fifth time he goes into the water, things have gone to pure, raw, unfiltered sh*t. 

Shaun, a 60-year-old with cancer and maybe a week to live - d*mn him for taking so long to find him, why did he think building an army would be the first step to finding his son? - toyed with him, used the synth 10-year-old as bait, taunted him with the boy that wasn’t his. 

But, maybe the synth was.

When he walked into that bright room, the instincts of a father kicked in, his chemicals and body told him ‘this is your baby’. The old man did, and...he felt nothing. Misery, pain, anger, torment, at the news and confession, but none of the parental urges. 

So, that happened. Then Shaun told him that he wanted Jess to take over as Director. 

Eventful day. 

When he returned, he could hardly explain himself. 

He’d spent careful time uniting the Railroad and Brotherhood. Well, not  _ uniting _ , but creating a truce. The Brotherhood would destroy the Institute, the Railroad would deal with and help the Synths that they could save before Prime turned the place to rubble. 

When he’d returned, the other two leaders and his motley group stared expectantly. He asked Preston to throw a cushion from the Boston Airport’s waiting room, where they assembled the teleporter. Then, with the grace of a goose, screamed into a ragged pillow for a solid minute and 27 seconds. 

When he removed his mottled face from the pillow, the leaders were looking at him like he’d grown two heads and his companions were sharing worried looks. And by worried, that means they were all collectively thinking ‘what the f*ck just went down?’.

Upon explaining his unique predicament, the sympathetic groans and sucked-in breaths and the very suitable ‘yiiiiiikkkkesss…..’ from Deacon only fueled the feral energy that Jess couldn’t seem to keep in. 

Which is why he’s swimming out to a barge trailer north of Spectacle. Getting out that energy. 

Preston suggested that, if Jess would be Director, they wouldn’t need to destroy the Institute. Under new leadership, the organization could be controlled, put to better, less unethical tasks. Desdemona seemed to agree, but Maxson held suspicious. He gave Sturges the holotape of information to copy and give to the other leaders, then practically ran off to sulk.

He had sat by the water of the Airport, while Preston and Sturges, the Railroad, and the BoS planned their next move, discussed new developments.

Danse came by, not in Power Armor for once, and took a seat next to him. Asked if he was okay. Handed him a box of snack cakes and a brandy bottle. 

Let Jess take him up on that offer from before. He buried his head in Danse’s shoulder while the soldier rubbed his back, let him shake apart and drop the General act. Told him it was okay to break under the weight of the world, that he’d been through so much it would have been unnatural if he  _ didn’t  _ fall apart. Promised him that he’d be there every step of the way. 

He had to leave, meet with the courser in Nahant. But Danse’s touch seemed to thaw even the coldest parts of him.

Even in the 3:AM water, the warmth from the man’s bulk burned steadfast. The barge grows closer as he braves the chilly undertow. 

X6-88 was the courser’s designation. He seemed forcefully indifferent, focused and relentless. 

Jess had fetched him from the Institute after Libertalia and introduced him to the group, taking in yet another stray. 

  
X6 admired Danse, who wanted to crack the courser’s skull open. Deacon nearly had a panic attack, while X6 bitterly offered a handshake of greeting. Professional, but unhappy with the prospect of touching a wastelander. But, he did it for the future Director. Piper sassed him, totally unafraid. Her attitude seemed to earn some of the courser’s respect. 

Another strange, out-of-place addition to a disaster of a team. By being unusual, it was perfectly normal. 

Jess had found a part to finish Μονομάχος, his X-01, at Libertalia, and their first bonding exercise was blowing apart big-wigs like Behemoths and Queenies. He thinks that X6 approved of his combat prowess and technical know-how, but couldn’t be sure. Might have been performative. The General doubts that X would ever actually talk back to him, but he hopes they get to that point where the man feels like his opinion has value enough to do so. 

As he pulls himself up onto the rusty barge, littered with skeletons and skulls stuck on pikes, the ocean wind is efficient in dousing the embers left by Danse’s arms. 

  
The barge trailer is strange, another example of a story written in a different language by a drunkard. There’s a Nuka-Cola machine, bits of a ruined house, a Port-a-diner - how does any of this end up here? 

Bitterly, he eyes the Port-a-Diner. Every time he finds one of the d*mned things, he  _ has  _ to try it. He  _ needs  _ to prove to himself that the disgraces of engineering actually work, but they never do. It isn’t about the pie, those things had to have more nuclear material than the bombs to stay so untouched, it’s about the honor behind it.  _ Screw you, machine, I am unyielding.  _

  
He ends up having to yield every time. On one occasion, he stayed up for hours at the Port-a-Diner in Jamaica Plains until Danse made him go to bed. 139 attempts.139 attempts and a prayer for each one, but the stupid  _ failure  _ of machinery  _ would. Not. Work.  _

Jess glares daggers at the certainty-poisonous pie. And, because he’s theatric, promises that, if he can get the pie, he’ll confess his feelings to Danse. 

So, he pushes the button. It’s a bitter gesture - these things never work, he’ll never spill his heart. A promise to keep these feelings to himself.

The claw reaches down, and he watches, horrified, as the plate is lifted to the conveyor belt. 

Hey,  _ God _ ? Do you think you’re  _ funny  _ or something?   
  


~

Oh boy, if he thought things already went to sh*t. He’s swimming towards an over-turned boat near Fort Strong, and his tears are lost in the water.

Just when he went take a sign from the Lord,  _ the stupid pie, _ he got a ping from the Institute on his Pip-boy. 

When he arrived, Volkner told him Shaun’s clock was at the final hour. 

Sitting by his elderly son’s deathbed, watching the light in his eyes fall dark, feeling the grip of his hand loosen - he sobbed in that room, alone, regrets and mistakes wreaking havoc on his fragile heart. 

Then, X6 rushed in, telling him they needed to get to Listening Post Bravo.

The holotape he gave the BoS revealed Danse as a Synth.

Lord, what had he done to earn such poor luck?   
  


By the time they get down there, Nick was trying to talk Danse into taking the gun away from his head. 

Danse had frozen when Jess burst into the room, tearful. All of those confessions came spilling - the care for him, the friendship, the closeness, but he kept back the love that was more than innocent companionship. 

He told Danse that if he left the world, he would follow. Nothing else mattered but him, and if he were to leave, he would be right by his side. That managed to get him to lower the pistol. 

Jess told him that he was the only thing he had left. He’d just lost his child, he couldn’t bear to lose his best friend, couldn’t watch a man of loyalty and passion and honor die such a cruel, heartless way. He sobbed, grieving a child and fearful for his friend’s life, and through tears he begged Danse to not leave him too, begged him to come back to Sanctuary with him.

Lord, how his heart released all that tension when Danse dropped the pistol, let Jess pull him into a tight embrace, take his hand and lead him out of that wretched bunker. The others stood, silent and sharing knowing looks. 

Maxson showing his face was the worst thing that could have happened, because it revealed Jess as a selfish man. 

The Elder demanded that Danse be killed, and Jess pulled his Pip-boy’s radio, tuned in to Radio Freedom, and ordered all artillery to aim at the Prydwen, staring Maxson down with reddened eyes, filled with a raging fire. 

Danse grabbed him by the arm, eyes wide, asked what the hell he was doing. Preston chanted ‘don’t, don’t, don’t, please don’t do this’, Hancock yelled ‘OH SH*T, WE’RE DOING THIS?!’, Deacon’s sunglasses fell from his nose, Piper squealed, unable to handle the tension, X6 whispered from behind him to order the strike. It was a mess. 

Jess glared into Maxson’s eyes, told him that he had nothing to lose but the man behind him, while he had an entire army to lose in the blink of an eye. Told him that he was humored, tolerated by the Minutemen, who were already powerful  _ before  _ they flew in. Hissed out that, if Maxson made himself an unwanted guest in his home, he wouldn’t make it out the front door alive. 

His voice, once clear and gentle like the early morning waves, turned to thunder, sharp cracks and rough static, shattering the air like knives, erratic like lightning strikes, no longer the even and soft rain. 

He told Maxson he could kill one soldier at the cost of the rest, or go back home and not screw with him.

Maxson grit his teeth, told him that Danse had to be reported as dead, and if seen, would be fired upon. Jess said that was fine, and get the hell out of his sight. 

When he turned around, his team was huddled, slack-jawed and very much afraid of him. 

Danse said he would stay behind, make the bunker livable, promised he would be there when Jess came back.

Jess asked him to, of all the promises he could break,  _ not  _ let it be  _ that  _ one. 

And so, he’s swimming at 5 AM, towards a large fishing boat that someone had built a sort of platform on. It’s wooden, rowboats tied to posts alongside it, covered in fishing poles, a skeleton, and some trash. So, someone’s fishing spot after the bombs fell. 

The sky is peach and bruise, the sun peering over the horizon. He ungracefully sits over the edge, legs in the cold water. In the early morning light, the patches of burn scars look so much more invasive than usual. 

He sighs, watches the sun come up. 

A boy from a remote village in Greece, taken to his half-uncle - who gave him his name, after Mother only called him ‘boy’ - in Amsterdam, to Harvard in the states, to China as a combat engineer, to father and ‘husband’, frozen for two centuries, awoke to a wasteland, to General of an army, to the Director of a shadowy science organization - all these things, and yet he still goes to cry in the ocean to get over his feelings for a man.

In the village, homosexuality never came up, but even if the pastor condemned it, he’s done far worse than love another man. It’s strange - for all his sins, his bisexuality is the one thing he doesn’t pray forgiveness for.

His heart tears at the likely truth that Danse is probably straight, or asexual. Even if the man  _ was  _ attracted to the same sex, he still wasn’t into Jess. He was allowed to not be, of course. As long as Danse was alive, and near him, his heart wrapped in tulip petals wouldn’t cry. It would writhe, reach for him, but the pain would be manageable. 

Jess watches as the sun pulls itself over the sea, sky turning true blue. He wonders if Danse is doing the same, back in Sanctuary. 

~

The seventh time he goes swimming, it’s off the docks on Spectacle Island, and he’s joined by the man he’s been swimming to cope with his feelings for. 

It’s been four months since Bravo. Jess is reforming the Institute, much to X’s dismay, but keeping it true enough to its original goal to keep the residents from rioting, while not being evil enough to draw Maxson’s ire. 

Shaun, the little boy from Kellogg’s memories, was brought home, to Sanctuary. He was programmed to be the perfect child - something Jess had Ayo undo, let the boy be a free human. Jess explained to the kid what was going on, told him everything, asked him if he wanted to be adopted. Little boy was afraid, squinting under the lights, said yes to the only human that didn’t scowl at him. 

  
Shaun had been his child for a little under three months. He was a bright child, gifted in science but preferring art and history. Jess’s pride and joy, already attached. He’d asked Dr. Cabot to provide therapy to his son as well, try to heal the wounds before they scarred. The boy had made progress, but the Institute was traumatizing Jess as an adult - he could only imagine what Shaun had to go through as a child.

The Minutemen are prospering, the synths have been freed and are no longer in production, the Railroad is handling them, the BoS is doing its own thing and keeping an eye on the scientists, and Jess has a baby boy that listens with shiny eyes at his stories, odd beliefs, soaks up affection. 

While the factions had been doing well, keeping peaceful, and Jess was settling into fatherhood, Danse had been crashing and burning. 

The man had apologized to the other synths and Hancock, so they all thought he was coming to terms with everything. He wasn’t. Danse had all but isolated himself, never spoke, hid away in the garage or on patrols he didn’t need to go on. Nick had tried to offer advice, words of wisdom, but he refused not because of Nick’s synth-ness, but because he didn’t want to take help from a man he’d mistreated. 

How do you help someone who condemns himself? 

You take action. 

So, Jess grabbed him at 3 in the morning, and drug him to the Island. Told him it was where he went when the world was too much. He threw another sleeping bag upstairs, brought plenty of beer.

The first night, Danse had just frowned, stayed quiet, drinking in comfortable but heavy silence. 

Second night, Jess told him stories that his father told him, the few times they’d met. Told him stories of Troy, Autolycus, the trials of Herakles, how the sun and moon gave Earth life by the sun’s light feeding the plantlife, and moon watering it by controlling the tides and water cycle. The third night, Danse quietly asked for more stories from the mountains of Greece, stories Jess had heard from a man he barely knew. That night, the victory of Thebes over Sparta was regaled over beer and a lamp. 

It’s the fourth night that Jess makes progress. 

They talk about Danse’s identity, how his whole world had been ripped from him, how utterly lost he felt.

There was a perfect  _ opportunity  _ to tell the man his feelings - but it wasn’t the  _ time _ . Not  _ that  _ night, while Danse was close to angry tears and collapsing in on himself. Instead, Jess comforts and consoles him, promises that no matter what, he will always be right there for him. Says they’re the best of friends. 

Danse tells him he’s the brother he never had, and Jess throws out the carefully-planned confession,  _ never  _ to be uttered. 

A month goes by, and Danse is almost glowing. He smiles more, bright and big and dopey. Shaun had taken to him, asking questions about Power Armor and science and stories and how he got his scars. 

The group had all but shoved kindness down his throat.Curie was keeping an eye on his health that had deteriorated, Preston making sure his mental state wasn’t dropping. Once almost an outcast, Danse had been welcomed warmly into the group as family.

Hancock has appointed himself as leader of the ‘P*ss Off Maxson’ club, a club where the only task is being as friendly towards Danse as possible. Nick had become a mentor, guiding him throughout the adjustment phase.

Which led to the latest reason as to why he ran to Spectacle Island.

Jess had been walking around Sanctuary, late at night, around the river. Danse had been at the bridge in Nick’s company, likely discussing his issues under the privacy of night. Nick had brought up his social awkwardness, mentioned his love-life, suggested he put himself out there, get out of his shell. Danse had declined and, to Nick’s surprise, said he was already interested in someone.

Jess was thankful for his Chameleon armor, slipping away undetected. 

He had prayed that Danse find someone, someone who would make him realize how heavenly he was, make him feel like the moon and all of the stars. His prayer was answered.

He felt so selfish. For all his attempts at staying strong, that foolish little heart of his stained the flowers around it in tears. Danse would be happy - that was all that mattered. Jess would watch from afar, wish them luck and many years, stand unshakable, even if that cardiovascular demon clawed at his ribcage, reaching past the bones for a heat it would never have. He would stare, greedily, at the fire, only to chase away the warmth with the icy waters of the sea.

It was too much, so he packed for Spectacle Island, leaving Codsworth to watch Shaun. Danse stopped by while he got his bag ready, asked where he was going. Said he needed to talk to him about something - some _ one.  _

The love of his life came to him, asking for advice on a relationship with another.

_ Ow.  _

Of course he invited Danse along, selfish b*stard he was. 

Spectacle Island is sunny, warm, the beaches and water perfect for a much needed dip. The waters wouldn’t be the cold he needs, but the waves are distracting on their own.

Jess, aching, confesses that when he hurts, he swims, and because his stupid, needy, f*cked-up heart can’t let go, invites the other man. Danse makes a joke about the Navy, but slips into the water with him anyway, and it’s almost like there’s nothing wrong. 

They swim around the Island, the lap turning competitive, and Danse falls in second place when Jess reaches the docks first. Sitting over the edge, waves gently splashing against their legs, Danse starts talking to him about their last conversation, their friendship and how much he appreciates Jess and there goes that silly heart again. 

It’s early in the morning, the sky that peachy orange that seems so saccharine. 

Water drips down their bodies, the ocean is pink with the sunrise, the man he loves tells him how he’s never been so close to someone like this, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, and d*mn him, his heart wins. Jess spills a confession like he’s throwing up poison. 

Danse freezes and regret ties itself around his neck, pulling tight like a noose. He asks how, like Jess hasn’t dreamed of those eyes next to him on a pillow, like he hasn’t imagined the calluses of his hand against his lips, like he isn’t this all-powerful force that Jesse is helpless to.

Like he never thought someone would love him. 

It’s a realization, a mistake of God that Jess intends to correct. 

He lets his heart run wild, every little poetic thought he’d ever had about the man spilling freely, tells him the strangest thing he loves about him, confesses every foolish wish because he is the stupidest man in the world, declaring love for a man who yearns for another. There are tears running down his cheeks, but he hopes they blend in with the water dripping from his hair. His heart weeps, but he’ll be fine. If the pain is too much, he’ll soothe himself with the freezing ocean.

Danse is silent, but after a moment, beams, smiles so tenderly and sweetly, asks him to be patient with him, because he feels the same and he wants this. Wants them.

Their eyes meet, and suddenly that fire in Danse’s eye doesn’t seem so frightful - and yet it has never burned brighter, looked  _ warmer _ . All the running from that flame, hiding in the cold sea, drowning the warmth, and he still ends up caught in those ember eyes.

What is a foolish, needy man to do, if not surge forward and press his lips to the other’s?

Oh, Lord keep his heart still, for the way it sings and fills with so much love it could burst when Danse puts his hands around his back, lets himself be pushed down to the wood and lets Jess lay atop him, smothering his face with laugh-laced kisses.

Maybe he should listen to his heart more. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in two days and I dont fear God
> 
> also, you ever been so gay you nearly started a, essentially, civil war just to keep your crush safe? You ever threaten to vibe check a blimp with kids because a frat boy was homophobic to your MCM?


End file.
